Three female pals meet weekly in their English village
to talk about men, and the one with the most disastrous male experience since
last time out gets rewarded with a box of caramel chocolates. So, maybe this
movie is designed to appeal mostly to women, but candy gorging doesn't sound
like quite the right therapy for a headmistress (Andie MacDowell), police inspector
(Imelda Staunton) and doctor (Anna Chancellor) trying to attract men.

Eventually, American expatriate MacDowell gets happily
embroiled in a relationship with a much younger former student (Kenny Doughty).
In another script turn that doesn't sound like what friends do or ought to be
doing, the others plot to break up the union. If the movie were as funny as
it is forced, however, it could capitalize on the goodwill American audiences
have extended to British romantic comedies at least back to Four Weddings
and a Funeral, which also starred MacDowell. It even has a built-in advantage,
given that a wedding and a funeral provide the backdrops for two of its pivotal
scenes.

But at about the two-thirds mark, writer/director John
McKay unexpectedly flip-flops his story's tone and goes for intolerable heavy
pathos. After Chocolat and this, how about a moratorium on candy-centered
comedies?